


Courage, and How To Find It

by KLStarre



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Era, F/F, Femslash, First Kiss, Harry Potter Secret Santa, Hogwarts, POV Second Person, Secret Santa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-27
Updated: 2016-12-27
Packaged: 2018-09-12 01:27:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9049669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KLStarre/pseuds/KLStarre
Summary: What is bravery, anyway?





	

            You should have been put in Ravenclaw. You know it, from the ends of your hair to the bottoms of your feet, and you can’t hide the disappointment you feel when the Sorting Hat yells out “Gryffindor!” Of course, it’s better than Hufflepuff, and better than Slytherin, but from what you’ve heard, Gryffindor is the house of brashness, and you are not brash. What you are is smart, objectively and irrefutably, and to have that erased and ignored by a sentient hat that doesn’t even know you is like every mockery you’ve ever faced condensed into one blow to the stomach.

            You don’t talk much after being sorted, and once that first meal in the Great Hall has ended, you climb into your brand new four poster bed, full but not content, and resolve that in the morning you will see this rectified. It takes a long time for you to fall asleep, and, as you toss and turn, you imagine the other girls in the dormitory rolling their eyes at you and whispering to each other. _This isn’t right,_ is your last thought before exhaustion takes you, and it is the same three words in your head when you are the first to wake up in the morning to sunlight streaming through the tower windows.

            Determinedly, and with no plan whatsoever, you get dressed without making a sound and walk down the stairs and out of Gryffindor Tower. Behind you, the Fat Lady yawns pointedly, but you ignore her. This is fresh start, and you’ll be damned if you’re not going to take advantage of it.

            It takes you approximately two minutes and four moving spiral staircases to realize that you have no idea where you’re going. The hallways are silent and still, the figures in the portraits asleep, and everything looks different in the early light of morning. This is _ridiculous_. What kind of school makes it impossible to get around? Or contact administration? Or use a _telephone?_

            “Hello,” says a voice behind you, and you jump, turning quickly. Maybe whoever it is will be able to help you.

            But there is no one there. “Um. Hello?” you ask, and you hate the way your voice shakes. “Who’s there?”

            “Ah,” says the same voice, seeming to emanate from empty space. “My most sincere apologies, I seem to have forgotten to make myself visible.” As the voice speaks, a well-dressed figure fades into view, stopping just short of corporeal.

            “Oh,” you say, disappointed and relieved. “Nearly Head – I mean, Sir Nicholas.”

            “Quite right,” says the ghost, looking down on you as he floats three feet off the ground. “And you are Miss Hermione Granger, I believe?”

            “Quite right,” you say, before realizing how ridiculous it must sound, coming from you. It’s a thing you do, an unconscious habit of imitating those around you, and usually it helps you to make friends, but right now you want to shrivel up in a hole somewhere and never come out.

            He laughs, though, and not a mean laugh, so maybe you’re okay. “Are you looking for something?” he asks you, and it takes you a moment to remember that yes, in fact, you are, even if you’re not sure what.

            “I think I got…put in the wrong house?” you say, tentatively. “I want to talk to someone about getting switched.”

            “You do, do you?” he asks, looking a little bit offended, and that’s when you remember that he’s the Gryffindor house ghost. If you hadn’t offended him before, you definitely did now. Why can’t you do anything right? You open your mouth to explain, but he waves his hand, cutting you off. “Why is that?” he asks, and you frown, a crease appearing in the middle of your forehead.

            “Because I’m not brave,” you say, matter-of-fact, like it’s something everybody already knows and it doesn’t matter one way or another even though, deep down, you really wish you were. “I’m not brave, but I am smart, and smart kids go to Ravenclaw. That’s how it’s supposed to work.”

            It’s very clear to you, very black and white. You are smart, and so you should be in Ravenclaw. How could the hat not see that?

            There is silence for a moment that is short but feels long. “How many opportunities have you had to be brave?” asks the ghost, and you’re sure there’s a bad joke somewhere. Because you’re sure he’s expecting you to say none, to say that you’re eleven and you’ve never had to be brave but you just know that you’re not and can you just be put in Ravenclaw, okay, because you’re afraid, and then he’ll talk you out of it and you’ll realize you’re really a Gryffindor after all and everything will work out.

            But the thing is, you’ve had plenty of opportunity to be brave, and you’ve never taken it. You hid yourself so the white kids at school would stop being cruel, and you learned to smile with a closed mouth to hide your too-long-front-teeth, and you didn’t apply for a single one of the programs that you knew you could have made it into because you were too afraid of rejection to even try.

            None of that is something you’re willing to admit to out loud, though. Not even to a dead man. So you shrug, and he nods and smiles as if he’s made his point, and you don’t point out that you can see the gap between his head and his neck.

            “Exactly as I thought,” said Nearly Headless Nick, and you sigh, because you know that you’re not going to argue the point.

∞

            It’s Halloween, and you’re crying in the bathroom because you still don’t have a single friend (these Gryffindors just don’t understand you, maybe if you’d been in Ravenclaw) and that redhead who’s best friends with Harry Potter said something terrible to you. The pathetic thing is, you had been doing kind of okay, but it turns out that it barely takes anything to set you off, these days.

            Something hits the door, on the other side, but you ignore it, assuming it’s just Peeves come to torment you. Except you can hear its heavy breathing and Peeves – well, Peeves doesn’t need to breathe. And there is not a single living human who could be that loud. So now you are scared, scared and sad, a feeling of ice that radiates from your stomach and you back away from the door, pressing yourself against the wall just as the door is smashed in. You scream, eyes focused on the beast in front of you, the beast (what is it? a troll? is there a troll in the bathroom with you?) and its club that is longer than you are tall.

            Your brain isn’t working, your incredible brain that is all you have, and you reach for your wand with numb fingers and pull it out of your pocket and it falls from your hands and rolls across the floor, clacking against the tiles. Oh.

            You are going to die here, killed at eleven years old by a troll in a school for wizards, because you are too much of a coward to do anything about it. And a terrible part of you is smug, self-satisfied that you were right about your own cowardice, but the rest of you is terrified and small and does not want to die today.

            But you resign yourself to it nonetheless until the door swings open again, quietly, so as not to attract the notice of the troll. And it’s Potter and his redheaded friend, and any other time you would hold a grudge, but as you watch they stab the troll up the nose with a wand and _wingardium leviosa_ its own club to knock it unconscious and _you are not dead you are not dead_ and right now, you will forgive anything.

            The next few minutes are a blur, and all you remember is lying to the teachers because these kids saved your _life_ but then you are lying in bed with your heart still racing and the image of that troll frozen in your mind and your last coherent thought before you fall into a restless sleep is _I am not brave._

∞

            The end of the year, you are no longer a coward, or at least not as much. You helped to defeat Voldemort, and you put your life on the line, and you have friends, now, so you’re okay. You’re okay, you tell yourself as Gryffindor wins the house cup, even as you look longingly over at Ravenclaw table. You’re okay, you tell yourself on the train ride home, as you laugh with your friends and miss Hogwarts already.

            You’re okay, you tell yourself, even when you’re not.

∞

            Second year, you watch the new students be sorted, and you clench your jaw every time there is a new _RAVENCLAW!_ but the one you notice most is a girl. Blonde and small, like a dancer, but she walks like she is made of water. Her name is Luna Lovegood, and she sits with a beatific smile as she is sorted, nodding as if the Sorting Hat is talking to her. Ravenclaw, it yells, eventually, and she waves her hands around her face and walks off to join her new table, her face not changing.

            You hate her, instantly, with a rush of passion that surprises even yourself.

∞

            It is third year, and you have made your peace with Gryffindor, but the more you hear about Loony Lovegood the more you hate her. You have one class together, Arithmancy, and she doesn’t raise her hand and she doesn’t get perfect scores and yes, of course there are other Ravenclaws who do the same, but she is the one you have fixated upon and how _dare_ she care so little when she is where you should have been.

            How dare the Sorting Hat think she is smarter than you.

            One day, she raises her hand, and you are so surprised by it that you almost miss what she says. Her voice is quiet, and vague, but she seems certain when she says, “Professor, that number tells us of both the future and the past.”

            And that’s ridiculous, of course, it’s _Arithmancy_ , everything is about the future. But the Professor nods, and smiles, and says “That’s right, Luna,” and you are so angry you can barely think. It doesn’t make _sense._ And how could she have figured that out, when you are so confused? The whole thing is ridiculous.

            After class, you follow her up to Ravenclaw tower. You are considering asking her a question, trying to get her to explain what she had meant, but you are too proud to make yourself, and by the time you make it up the stairs and to the door, you have yet to speak. She doesn’t seem to have noticed you, and she sways back and forth as she walks, her hair rippling behind her. She swings the knocker, and you watch, fascinated, ready to learn the password. But then the doorknob speaks. “The man who invented it doesn't want it. The man who bought it doesn't need it. The man who needs it doesn't know it. What is it?”

            What?

            Luna smiles, and thinks for a moment. “I think the answer you want is a coffin,” she says, “But I think it can also be a great many things. People often buy things they don’t need, and need things without knowing it.”

            The door swings open in acknowledgement, and you get a brief glimpse inside as Luna enters before it swings shut. Before you can stop yourself, you knock on the door. And the doorknob speaks to you, a different riddle this time. “There are two sisters: one gives birth to the other and she, in turn, gives birth to the first. Who are the two sisters?”

            “That’s ridiculous,” you say, not even stopping to think.

            “Is that your answer?” asks the doorknob, and you sigh and shake your head, as if it can see you. For a moment, you stand there, half-hoping that Luna or someone or anyone will open the door and let you in and explain why you can’t understand, but the door remains stubbornly shut.

            Finally, you turn your Time Turner and go to class, dejected.

            Maybe you don’t belong in Ravenclaw, after all.

∞

            It is fourth year, and you no longer hate Luna Lovegood. You think she is ridiculous, yes, and probably doesn’t deserve to be in Ravenclaw, but she seems harmless enough and you are happy in Gryffindor, now, more confident in yourself and in your friends. You have learned that being afraid does not mean you are not brave, and that is an important piece of knowledge to have gained. She is friends with Ginny, it seems like, and so you see a lot of her.

            You catch yourself watching her at meals, listening to what she has to say. You tell yourself it’s because she’s interesting, and not because her voice is like a song and she moves like the world doesn’t matter and, god, you wish you could be like that. And she is. She is interesting. She says things you never would have thought of, and the more you listen to her talk about how she thinks everyone is a little bit magical, or how Charms and Transfiguration are really the same thing, or there’s all kinds of things we don’t know about, so why shouldn’t wrackspurts be real? the more you are enraptured.

            For your whole life, you had thought of intelligence as books, and knowledge, and facts. But now, as Luna laughs down the table from you, Spectrespecs firmly on her face, you wonder.

∞

            You don’t get up the courage to say anything, to really speak to her, until fifth year, when she is already annoyed with you for insulting the Quibbler. You hadn’t meant it, not really, but you feel bad nonetheless, and so when you bump into her in between classes, you ask if you can talk. Your heart is in your throat when she says yes, and you step into an unused classroom.

            She waits, patiently, as you gather your thoughts. You have never been much good at apologies, and you are beginning to realize that you feel something more for this girl than simple respect. But this was your own choice, and so you swallow, and you say, “I’m sorry. For what I said about the Quibbler. I didn’t really mean it.”

            She smiles, a wispy, wistful smile. “That’s okay. I had already forgiven you. I’m used to people saying things like that.”

            You nod awkwardly, not sure what to do with yourself. And then – what the hell. You open your mouth again before you can think better of it, and say, “I think you’re pretty cool, actually. And smart. You think differently from most people.”

            This time, Luna’s smile is radiant, taking up her whole face.

            The next morning, she sits next to you at breakfast, and you talk. Not about anything important, not really, just you throwing out topics to see what she thinks. Everything from magic to politics to history to colors to art and music. When you bring up music, she laughs, a beautiful clear laugh, and sings a few bars of a song you’ve never heard in a language you don’t recognize. You mention books, and she seems just as enthused about them as she does about everything else, and even though you like nonfiction and she likes field guides to animals that don’t exist, you talk and laugh and are so totally wrapped up in her that you forget that anyone else exists until breakfast is over.

            During class, you get two questions wrong because all you can think about is Luna Lovegood.

             “Hermione!” she calls from her seat at the Ravenclaw table as you walk into dinner, and you smile without even noticing. She makes everything sound beautiful, and you want to pretend that you didn’t hear her, just so that she’ll say your name again. But you don’t, because you’re afraid that she won’t, and you join her at the Ravenclaw, hoping that no one will be upset by your presence. You are afraid that it will be awkward, sitting with these people who you used to envy so much (when did that envy stop, you wonder?) but they welcome you with open arms and open minds, and you fall into the rhythm with Luna as easily as if you had been friends with years.

            You continue like this for weeks, meeting each other in the library and in each other’s common rooms (the first time you saw the Ravenclaw common room, you almost cried. It was exactly what you’d imagined), Harry and Ron making fun of you, joking that you act like you’re in love. And you deny it, of course, because Luna is just a friend and you’re terrified that she doesn’t feel this as much as you do.

            Never, in your entire life, have you thought this much. Never, in your entire life, have you felt this free, this able to become.

            It is a Friday near Christmas when Luna asks you if you want to go looking for nargles with her the next morning. The way she asks, it feels different than your previous plans have been. She bites her lip as she talks, eyes not leaving yours.

            There is not a single world, in the entirety of the infinite multiverse, in which you say no.

∞

            You meet early in the morning, under a tree on the grass by the lake. She is beautiful and determined, and you are nervous and amused. “So where are we looking?” you ask, and she laughs.

            “Nargles hide in mistletoe,” she says, completely serious, “and I brought some with me. We just have to hold it up high and hope that they make themselves visible. They come out most often in the mornings.” She lifts a clump of mistletoe up high, to the light, directly above both of your heads, and ties it to a branch of the tree that stretches into the sky. “Perfect,” she says, smiling.

            You are frozen. Does she know what mistletoe symbolizes? Has she noticed that they are standing directly under it? Is it –

            Luna leans forward, hair blowing in front of her face, and reaches out to cup your face. “Is this okay?” she asks, and you nod, unable to speak. And then you are kissing, and she tastes like honey and like the moon and your eyes are closed and this is like nothing you have ever experienced. Her hand is still against your cheek, and you reach out, running your own hands through her hair and pulling her closer.

            The sun rises as you hold each other, two girls who are young and in love, and, for the moment, unafraid of what the future holds.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This was for the HP Femslash Secret Santa exchange of 2016! I hope you like it, harryjamees.tumblr.com


End file.
